by Jeffrey Bowman

Created on: September 01, 2007

I am very disappointed with this movie. As millions of people have already noticed, way too much was left out. For example, what about the actual Order of the Phoenix? The movie barely makes any mention of it yet that is the main point of the movie! Very little time is spent showing the Headquarters (Sirius Black's house) including the house-elf Kreacher. Kreacher played a very, very important role in sending Harry to the Ministry of Magic to "rescue" Sirius when he (Kreacher) lied about Sirius not being home. Kreacher lied upon the orders of his other master, Bellatrix Lestrange. I mean, Kreacher's loyalty to Bellatrix Lestrange is an essential point to include-especially as the storyline progresses with future movies. On that note, Kreacher also stole a locket in the book which will become important in the final movie. (The locket was one of the horcruxes.) To my recollection, Kreacher was shown a mere few seconds in the movie. A terrible mistake.

The blame for the missing scenes goes to the screenwriter. It was his first, and let us all hope LAST, Harry Potter script. I believe that Steve Kloves is coming back for "The Half-Blood Prince" and hopefully "The Deathly Hallows" as well. Content was very similar to the books on the first four movies because Kloves does a superb job with his scripts.

In changing topics, the acting performances were inferior to the previous movies. I blame this on the director (David Yates) because we have witnessed better performances from the actors in the other movies! I am a major Emma Watson fan, but I need to be honest in saying that she did a poor job in this movie delivering her lines. THIS IS NOT HER FAULT, THOUGH. The director is to blame-he should have done a better job coaching them into performing the scenes.

I am however pleased with the new characters, especially Umbridge. This is because we have no previous performances to compare with Umbridge or Lovegood so their performances appear very good without a contrast. A better evaluation of those characters will come in the next movie, but as of this post, David Yates is supposed to direct it as well. (That concerns me greatly.) Honestly, I recommend people to just skip this movie and read the book instead.

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